This document provides information about finding quality open access journals to publish research in. It recommends using the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) as a starting point. DOAJ allows you to search for peer-reviewed, open access journals by subject, whether they charge article processing fees, their license type, and country. The document outlines the green and gold routes to open access and how to identify reputable open access journals using DOAJ filters, criteria for inclusion in DOAJ, and evaluating open access journals.

1. Want to make your research OA* so where do you publish?
Make DOAJ your starting point for finding quality peer-
reviewed OA journals
Webinar for OA week 2016 on openaccessIndia.org
Presented by Leena Shah, DOAJ Ambassador for India
27th October 2016
*OA- Open Access

2. Remove access &
price barriers
Remove permission
barriers
To make content of all scholarly
articles freely available onlineGOAL
For a work to be OA, the copyright
holder must consent in advance to let
users “copy, use, distribute, transmit
and display the work publicly and to
make and distribute derivative works,
in any digital medium for responsible
purpose, subject to proper attribution
of authorship” (Bethesda, Berlin statements)

3. How do you participate in Open Access?
Green Route:
1. Submit paper to journal as
normal
2. After it is selected you submit*
the final peer-reviewed copy to
an open repository (e.g. your
Institutional Repo). *Check the
self archiving policy of the journal
3. Google can pick up the metadata
of the article
4. Your article can be found by
anyone from Google
Gold Route:
1. Identify a reputable OA journal
2. Send your paper for peer review
3. Upon acceptance – pay an
“article processing charge (APC)”
to publisher if applicable.
4. Your paper is published in the OA
journal.

4. Taking the Gold Route
Find a reputable OA journal
DOAJ
Directory of
OA Journals
[doaj.org]
subject
specific
peer
reviewed
open
access
APC or
not?
journal
license
country

5. DOAJ search filters and facets
Looking for reputable OA journals with no processing charges – use DOAJ to find them

6. Embed and share search results

7. DOAJ – get the green tick?
The green tick ("The Tick") is displayed against all journals that
were accepted into DOAJ after March 2014 when DOAJ
launched its new criteria for journals to be accepted into
DOAJ. The new criteria require a higher level of compliance to
best practices and publishing standards.

8. DOAJ Seal - the orange circle
• The orange circle refers to the DOAJ Seal is a mark of certification for open
access journals, awarded by DOAJ to journals that achieve a high level of
openness, adhere to Best Practice and high publishing standards. To receive the
Seal, the journal must comply with the following 7 conditions:
• use DOIs as permanent identifiers;
• provides DOAJ with article metadata;
• deposits content with a long term digital preservation or archiving program;
• embeds machine-readable CC licensing information in articles;
• allows generous reuse and mixing of content, in accordance with a CC BY, CC BY-
SA or CC BY-NC license;
• has a deposit policy registered wíth a deposit policy registry;
• allows the author to hold the copyright without restrictions.

9. DOAJ- browse subjects

10. DOAJ - FAQ
https://doaj.org/faq

11. DOAJ – for publishers

12. DOAJ- Criteria for indexing
Publishing best practices based on:
- OASPA's Code of Conduct
- Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in
Scholarly Publishing.
OASPA – Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

13. Basic requirements for entry into DOAJ
• The full text of ALL content must be available for free and be Open Access without
delay (i.e. no embargo period).
• A journal has its own dedicated website. No other service or product should be
present under that URL
• A journal must have at least one ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)
registered at issn.org.
• Journal webpage must have clear navigation with links to a Current Issue, the Archive
or Past Issues, Search, Browse, the About page, the Editorial Board and Contact Us.
• Editorial Board page must have: the name, affiliation and email address of the
editor(s); the names of the editorial board members.
• exact type of peer-review must be stated clearly on the web site
• A link to ‘Author Guidelines’ must be clearly present on the journal website
• Journal must display clearly on its web site information about any charges for an
author to process or publish a paper.
• The journal's Open Access policy must be clearly stated on the journal's web site
• All the necessary journal business information pages i.e. the journal's aims and
scope, the editorial board, the instructions for authors, the description of the quality
control system, the Open Access statement, the plagiarism policy, and the licensing
terms) must be hosted on this same site

14. Evaluate OA journals
Sharing research results with the world is key to the progress of your discipline
and career. But with so many publications, how can you be sure you can trust
a particular journal? Follow this check list to make sure you choose trusted
journals for your research. http://thinkchecksubmit.org/
Reference this list for your chosen journal to check if it is trusted.
•Do you or your colleagues know the journal?
– Have you read any articles in the journal before?
– Is it easy to discover the latest papers in the journal?
•Can you easily identify and contact the publisher?
– Is the publisher name clearly displayed on the journal website?
– Can you contact the publisher by telephone, email, and post?
•Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses?
•Are articles indexed in services that you use?
•Is it clear what fees will be charged?
– Does the journal site explain what these fees are for and when they will be
charged?
•Do you recognise the editorial board?
– Have you heard of the editorial board members?
– Do the editorial board mention the journal on their own websites?
•Is the publisher a member of a recognized industry initiative?
– Do they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ?
– If the journal is open access, is it listed in the Directory of Open Access
Journals (DOAJ) ?
– If the journal is open access, does the publisher belong to the Open Access
Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA) ?
– Is the publisher a member of another trade association?

15. Directories – OA and Free Journals
• DOAJ (Directory of OA journals)
https://doaj.org/
• OpenDOAR (Directory of OA Repositories)
www.opendoar.org
• DOAB (Directory of OA books)
http://doabooks.org/
Disciplinary Archives
• arXiv http://arxiv.org/
• SSRN http://ssrn.com/en/
• bioRxiv http://biorxiv.org/
• ChemRxiv - announcement by ACS in Aug ‘16
Publishers & distributors
• BioMed Central
http://www.biomedcentral.com/home/
• Public Library of Science (PLoS)
http://www.publiclibraryofscience.org/
Some popular OA resources
• PubMed Central (PMC)
http://www.pubmedcentral.org/
• SciELO
http://www.scielo.org/index.php?lang=en
• Wiley OA journals
http://www.wileyopenaccess.com/view/journals
.html
• HighWire Press
http://www.highwire.org/lists/freeart.dtl
• PeerJ https://peerj.com/
• SAGE Open http://sgo.sagepub.com/
Databases and networks
ScienceOpen
https://www.scienceopen.com/
Digital Commons Network
http://network.bepress.com/
Source:
1. Open Access Resources. Libguides at University of St. Andres http://libguides.st-andrews.ac.uk/c.php?g=369375&p=2495654
2. Open Access Webliography. Adrian Ho and Charles Bailey. http://digital-scholarship.org/cwb/oaw.htm

16. References
• FC Choy (2015). Why is Open Access important to researchers?
[PowerPoint Slides]. Presented at Academic Publishing 2015, NTU
Libraries, Singapore.

17. This is not the end ..
What are your questions on Open Access or DOAJ?
Email: leena@doaj.org